Health practitioners urged to tackle challenges in the sector

Kintampo (B/A), Sept. 13, GNA - Dr. George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, Minister of Health, has called on health professionals to fight hard to deal with continuing challenges that confront the sector, many more of which he said "are created by us and we must look inside for the solutions".

He stressed that challenges of mal-distribution of health staff, misuse of the limited resources for health care and the total neglect of ethics and code of conduct in dealing with patients, were among the challenges that health professionals need to fight hard to deal with. Dr. Yankey, representing President Evans Atta Mills was addressing the fourth congregation and the climax of the 40th anniversary of the Kintampo Rural Health Training School (KRHTS) in Kintampo, however noted that many of the challenges were as a result of Ghana being a developing country.

A total of 414 graduates of the school were awarded their certificates and diplomas. The number was made up of 143 medical assistants, 104 field technicians, 72 technical officers/ community health, 45 health information officers, 38 medical laboratory technicians and 12 community oral health officers. The ceremony was under the theme, "KRTHS @ 40 - Championing Excellence in Medical Education and Training of Middle-level Health Professionals in Ghana".

Dr Yankey noted that the school remained a key institution in the government's vision of ensuring that quality health care was made available in every community in the country. "Our resolve, as a government, towards the realization of this vision is not negotiable and we will only claim that we have achieved our goal when every community in every part of the country can access basic health services without difficulty", he added. The Minister said the philosophy behind the establishment of the school was to provide the health sector with the means to deal with some of the persistent challenges that faced the health sector and that for the past 40 years, the nation could be proud that it had kept faith with the vision.

"Many of the school's products are holding the fort where other health workers have refused to go. Indeed some experts have observed that our health system could have experienced a situation of critical distress at the height of the brain drain were it no for the school's products", he observed.

Dr. Yankey said what was needed, was to work towards upgrading the institution into a degree awarding one with the same philosophy and vision and welcomed efforts by its management to forge an affiliation with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and to turn some of the programmes into degree programmes. He gave assurance that the Ministry was committed to the transformation and would provide the necessary support, announcing that, work on a four storey hostel would be revived in 2010 for completion by 2011, as well as the completion of a resource centre in good time to support the transformation.

The Minister reminded the graduating products of the institution that they would be confronted with persistent childhood communicable diseases for which preventive measures such as sanitation and health education and simple curative measures such as malaria treatment and oral dehydration were widely available. Dr. Yankey disclosed that the Ministry would soon embark on an ambitious programme to deal with the problem of malaria, noting that, with sustained efforts in collaboration with health ministries in the sub-region "we will be able to control and eventually eradicate malaria from our part o the world".

He told the new graduates that, "as you enter the sector with your newly acquired skills, be guided by the spirit of honesty, hard work, dedication, compassion and love" and not to forget their code of ethics, which enjoined them to put the welfare of the patient above all other considerations.

The Minister congratulated the graduates and advised them to "commit themselves to the philosophy of self-development through active and continuous learning and involvement in professional development programmes so as to ensure competent services at all times". Dr. Emmanuel Teye Adjase, Director of the school said the institutions was inspired by its vision to be a world-class health university that responds to the needs of communities and would continue to educate and train well-motivated, knowledgeable and skilful health professionals capable of providing quality services. He urged the graduates to serve selflessly in the remote communities "who need your services most" and to continue learning to enrich their practice.

The Director said to meet the ever growing demands for health professionals for general and specialist care, the Ministry of Health was supporting the school to start two middle level specialization programmes in mental health with technical support from the Hampshire NHS Trust and the University of Winchester in the United Kingdom. Plans for the construction of the international resource centre and the Foundation of Fame were unveiled at the ceremony whilst a tree was planted to symbolize the transformation period of the institution into a world class health university. 13 Sept. 09